My guess is Coach was as good at encouraging kids’ improvements in their skills, as well as bucking them up when needed.

In my day, a long, long time ago, all our coaches seemed to do was yell at us. Perhaps it had to do with them all having served in WWII or Korea, and their role models were drill sergeants. (Same with our Scout leaders.)

you really need to pair this clip with the coach’s speech from saturday’s victory. going into the 6th and final inning, new england was ahead 5-2 against southeast, the team from tennessee. southeast scored 5 runs in the top of the 6th to take a 7-5 lead. obviously the kids from rhode island felt like they blew their chance and coach dave belisle gave a rousing pep talk that began with, “We got the hammer! We got the home team! We’re putting 3 on the board!”

most of you should be able to watch espn through your cable provider. if you want to see the speech go to 2:05:30 on the watch espn link for game 12… southest vs new england.

I was laid up with a broken back in ’02 when I began watching the LLWS and have seen a lot of good stuff since, but Coach Belisle takes the cake. He’s been a one man good will show ever since he arrived. Good luck to the entire RI team in the future.

I remember when I was 14 I was the QB on my conference league football team. We lost the championship game on a bad call by the referee late in the game. The coaches were screaming and all the parents were upset. Driving home with my Dad he told me we had played a good game. But sometimes you just lose. I never forgot it and it has helped me overcome disappointment many times. My Dad was a good man too.

I had a great comment typed up, and the page refreshed, and BOOM it was gone.
(Some of us can’t type fast)
To summarize, get out there and do what this coach did and spread your knowledge and love of the game to our youth,whether it’s football or baseball or softball or hockey. (Okay,soccer too.)And through it show our set of values. This is how we reach the yutes of America. Get involved with the local city leagues and start a revolution.
Because our values are reflected in the purest form of competitive youth sports.

Maybe it’s the cynic in me, maybe it’s the outright crassness ESPN has displayed in the past, but this was my thought as well. It seemed too staged; the coach huddling the kids around him, on the field, the multiple angle shots. Almost like a documentary on the team had already been concocted and they were following a storyboard.

My wrestling coach in high school was always tough on all of us. Even at the end of the season in the state tournament, someone lost, he said “You should have put some more effort in and practiced more and MAYBE then you would have won” and that was it.

He was such a prick, but I learned more from that man than I did from most of my classes and I wouldn’t have traded that experience for anything.

He didn’t give out congratulations for losing, but I guess this is where we are in the “everyone gets a trophy” society.

This was a great speech and great reminder by the coach. Baseball is a game of failure and continuing on in spite of it. Don’t believe me? Show me another activity you can fail 7 times out of 10 and make $15 million a year.

His speech wasn’t geared toward making them feel like “special snowflakes.” It was a reminder of how far they came (the number of games played to even get to the LLWS is tremendous so yes, playing there is a reward in itself), that there can often times be only one winner, that there is virtue in having played the game hard and inspired people by doing so, and, most importantly, that this isn’t the end of anything but another opportunity to persevere and improve in the face of temporary defeat.

I’ve given many end-of-season speeches (not in LLWS or anything close) and didn’t even come close to nailing the message like he did.

Thanks for this AP. I’ve seen many a youth coach yell and scream at the team for losing an important game. This coach (and the team) took the loss with grace and dignity.

My eldest son and I watch this tournament every year. Japan as usual appears to be the international favorite. My son and I are rooting for Pennsylvania to meet them in the final to see if Mo’ne Davis can shut ’em down.